A rare case of Wernicke encephalopathy in stage IV gastric cancer.

A 38-year-old male with stage IV gastric adenocarcinoma presented with abdominal pain, nausea, bilious non-bloody vomiting, and lethargy. He was found to have an ileus and was treated appropriately with bowel rest and nasogastric tube decompression. However, the patient was also noted to have confusion and nystagmus. While he was abstinent from alcohol for 20 years, he was found to have Wernicke Encephalopathy (WE) as a result of malnutrition from the underlying malignancy.

Effectiveness of surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma in clinical practice: A United States cohort.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: The effectiveness of surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in reducing cancer related mortality among patients with cirrhosis is largely unknown. The objective of this study was to study the effectiveness of HCC surveillance in the national Veterans Administration (VA) clinical practice. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients with HCC during 2005-2010 by reviewing patients' medical records to determine receipt of HCC surveillance in the 2years prior to HCC diagnosis. We determined association of HCC surveillance with overall mortality adjusting for age, risk factors, model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score, comorbidity index, alpha-fetoprotein levels, healthcare utilization, Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage, and treatment. We accounted for lead and length time biases. RESULTS: Of 887 patients with HCC, only 412 (46.5%) received any surveillance prior to HCC diagnosis. Patients who received surveillance were significantly more likely to have early stage disease HCC (BCLC stage 0/A 27.2% vs. 11.6%) and receive potentially curative (20.9% vs. 11.6%) or palliative (59.2% vs. 45.5%) treatments compared to those without HCC surveillance. Receipt of HCC surveillance was associated with 38% reduction in mortality risk (unadjusted hazard ratios (HR) 0.62, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 0.54-0.71) that declined to 20% (HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.69-0.94) after adjusting for HCC stage and treatment, compared to those without HCC surveillance. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with HCC, pre-diagnosis HCC surveillance is associated with a significant 38% reduction in overall mortality. The reduction in mortality risk with surveillance is mediated via stage migration and receipt of HCC specific treatment. LAY SUMMARY: Surveillance for liver cancer leads to earlier detection of cancer and increases chances of getting curative treatment. This ultimately leads to increased longevity in patients with liver cancer.

Biological and clinical significance of GSK-3beta in mantle cell lymphoma--an immunohistochemical study.

GSK-3beta, a biologically important signalling protein, is regulated by the Wnt canonical and the PI3K/Akt pathways. We recently reported that mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) frequently shows evidence of GSK-3beta inactivation, since GSK-3beta is phoshorylated at its functionally critical serine 9 residue in all MCL cell lines and the majority of MCL tumors examined. To further assess the clinical and biological significance of GSK-3beta inactivation in MCL, we employed immunohistochemistry to assess the expression of the phosphorylated/inactive form of GSK-3beta (pGSK-3beta) in 83 paraffin-embedded tumors, and correlated its expression with various biological and clinical parameters. Dichotomizing pGSK-3beta into 2 groups produced twenty-seven (32.5%) tumors assessed as negative and fifty-six (67.5%) as positive. Positive pGSK-3beta expression correlated significantly with positive nuclear expression of beta-catenin and high expression of cyclin D1 (p = 0.0025, 0.0032 Fisher's exact, respectively), both of which have been previously shown to be regulated by GSK-3beta regarding their expression levels and/or sub cellular localization in-vitro. However, no significant correlation was found between pGSK-3beta and Ki67. Of the clinical parameters, continuous pGSK-3beta status had a significant correlation with absolute lymphocyte count in blood (p = 0.0011, Spearman) and negative pGSK-3beta expression was significantly correlated with a longer overall survival (p= 0.045, HR = 1.89), but not with age at diagnosis, clinical stage or the international prognostic index. To conclude, our results support the concept that GSK-3beta inactivation, found in approximately two-thirds of MCL tumors, is biologically and clinically important in MCL.

Concordant but not discordant bone marrow involvement in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma predicts a poor clinical outcome independent of the International Prognostic Index.

In diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), previous studies have suggested that, while concordant bone marrow (BM) involvement confers a poor prognosis, discordant BM involvement does not. Whether this correlation is independent of the non-Hodgkin lymphoma International Prognostic Index (IPI) was previously unknown. We reviewed all DLBCL case histories from 1986 to 1997 at our center with complete staging, IPI data, and follow-up. A total of 55 (11.2%) of 489 patients had BM involvement, including 29 with concordant involvement and 26 with discordant involvement. The 55 patients with BM involvement had a poor prognosis compared with the uninvolved BM group (5-year overall survival [OS], 34.5% versus 46.9%; log-rank P = .019). However, concordant involvement portended a very poor prognosis (5-year OS, 10.3%; P < .001), whereas discordant involvement did not (5-year OS, 61.5%, P value nonsignificant). Compared with the discordant subset, the concordant subset patients were older, had a higher serum lactate dehydrogenase level, and a significantly higher IPI. However, the poor survival associated with concordant BM involvement was independent of the IPI score (P = .002, Cox regression). We conclude that in patients with DLBCL, concordant but not discordant BM involvement confers a very poor clinical outcome. Furthermore, concordant BM involvement is an independent adverse prognostic factor.